The Empire of Man
by Humanity F Yeah
Summary: AU: As Earth descends into dystopia, a group of explorers discovers the ruins of an ancient civilization on Mars. Using their ships and technology, a small group of men is evacuated from Earth to start over in the new home for humanity, a garden world beyond the Sol system. Alternative start for humanity, early AI development, and a natural paranoia about the rest of the galaxy.


**Europe, Earth, Sol System, 2025.**

The first blasphemy laws are passed in an European Union member state, France, after their last election put the first Muslim president in charge of the Republic. Germany soon follows suit, starting a sweeping wave of cultural enrichment across the continent. Britain threatens to follow through with Brexit if they are forced to adopt the laws.

**United States, Earth, Sol System, 2028**.

Under the weight of the California expats, Texas flips blue and gives its electoral votes to the Democrat candidate. A bitter legal battle ensues as more and more boxes of ballots are discovered full of votes for predominantly one party or the other, until the participation rate on the elections surpasses 110%. Democrats now control all branches of government.

**Europe, Earth, Sol System, 2029.**

Resolution 336 is approved by the European Parliament, empowering the European Union to prosecute White Supremacists across all territories. Meanwhile, and after their new elections, Britain threatens to follow through with Brexit unless blasphemy laws are strengthened across the European Union. As a shorthand, all white males are considered suspect and must make efforts to clear their names if they are not really white supremacists. Shortly after this resolution is passed, white supremacist numbers rise all through Europe, thus confirming the need for such law.

**United States, Earth, Sol System, 2032.**

Comrade Kennedy signs the **G**rants for **I**mmediate **B**oosting of **S**tates executive order, overhauling decades of unfair taxation on the population. Under the executive order, the complicated marginal tax system is abolished, absolute tax rates rise to 99%, and a comprehensive (called _incomprehensible _by right-wing extremists) system of refunds based on several fair factors such as gender and ethnicity ensures a more equitable distribution of wealth. Riots erupt as the executive order only recognizes 127 genders. Over the next few years wealth inequality rises as, inexplicably, wealthy billionaires who donate lavish sums to The Party for the good of the country keep finding more and more loopholes for their fortunes. Free healthcare, college, housing, ponies, weed, and a living wage are provided by the State.

**European Caliphate, Earth, Sol System, 2033.**

Jizya tax is imposed on non-muslim males across the territories. This measure is approved by referendum, coming with a resounding "yes" from 100% of ethnic muslims, 99% of convert muslims, and over 90% of non-muslim european women. European men bear the burden so as to not be called racist, as that would be a terrible thing. And punishable by stoning, too. Britain threatens to follow through with Brexit to preserve tradition.

**Inequitable Union of Shameful North American Colonizers, Earth, Sol System, 2035.**

Reparations are finally approved by a supermajority of the Senate, and ratified by Glorious Leader Kennedy. The debt to be paid to the indigenous peoples of North America, as well as the descendants of slavery, is estimated at $100 quintillion USD. When it's pointed out that the rampant inflation will make paying that debt trivial over the next six months, the proposal is amended to reflect the value in gold, or 25 million tonnes. As this exceeded the total amount of gold mined through the world several times over, it is agreed that white men will be allowed to pay these in installments, with every man having a burden of one thousand tonnes of gold to repay from birth, to account for the very necessary interest rates that are otherwise illegal to impose on anyone else. Due to shortages, for which capitalists are blamed, chocolate is rationed to no more than twenty ounces a week.

**En route to Mars, Sol System 2037.**

It is decided that NASA will kill two birds with one stone and get rid of some of their legacy white males by sending "volunteers" to mars on a one-way trip, to fulfill the promise made by Exalted Leader Kennedy to set foot on the red planet within the decade. It is expected that this will erase the shame of his ancestor's effort to underhandedly defeat the glorious Soviet Union in the 60s in a similar race to the moon. A Soviet flag is to be carried by the volunteers to be the only one planted on the red planet. It is expected that this inclusive gesture will be rejected as self-serving tokenism by the enlightened university students, so the NASA director already has his groveling apologies prepared. The USS DoM (Die on Mars) is dispatched on a 10-month, one-way trip.

**Mars, Sol System, May 4th 2038.**

Mars. It had long been an enigmatic planet. Science Fiction works often explored the possibility of life being present on its surface. Even scientists of old proposed the existence of artificial structures on the surface based on their imperfect images of the planet.

There was nothing like that on the surface. It was a barren, dusty wasteland with nothing in the way of life, past, present, or future.

_Well, not exactly_, Jonathan Miller thought. _There are four humans on its surface right now._

The trip had not been exactly smooth. As expected from the incompetent kids back home, the path that had been laid for them would have made them miss the planet by about five hundred thousand kilometers. Luckily they had noticed the error when they double-checked the calculations within the first month of travel, and had just enough fuel to modify the trajectory. Had they waited much longer, they could have easily missed the window and just slung past their destination.

As it was, they barely managed, landing precariously close to the southern polar region. They had lost some of their equipment, and more importantly, a good portion of their water. Food, however, could be recovered. Those MRE packs were damn near indestructible. They were also about 20 years old, which explained why they were indestructible. They were made before incompetence took over. With any luck, they'd be able to recover water from the southern polar region. It'd be a long trip, but it could make their stay more bearable.

He looked at his companions. Like him, they were going through the debris of the failed module, trying to recover what they could.

Connor Clark.

Jack Davis.

Garrett Smith.

On hearing the news about the destruction of a good portion of their supplies, the response hadn't been consternation or worry. He knew damn well Houston base didn't care. One of the women had suggested that they fight to the death so that only one would remain, and would be able to stretch supplies that way. And she laughed as she said it, too. Someone suggested making it a pay-per-view event.

They had cut all transmissions and hadn't bothered calling again. It'd even save them some battery. The four of them had agreed without even a second hesitation that they'd rather die together than spend their last days fighting each other.

_Six months of freedom over a lifetime of slavery._

It wasn't a great motto, but as words to die by, they were adequate enough. They happened to be true, which helped.

"Hey guys!" Connor called over the radio. "Check this out!"

"What is it?" Jack replied.

"I think I just found a building."

For a moment nobody moved, or said a word. Then three pairs of legs scrambled over the dusty, frozen surface of the dead planet converging towards their companion. He was standing next to a large mound, which had been clipped by the incoming debris. And the impact had revealed what, to the untrained eye, appeared to be a sloping, _concrete wall_.

"No friggin' way," Garrett exclaimed.

"You see an entrance?" Jack said.

"No," Connor replied. "Just this wall. We might need to dig."

"Did we bring buckets and spades?" Miller said, to some general light laughs. "All right, let's get the supplies first, then we start digging."

"Should we tell Houston?" Jack said. This time, the laughter was much louder.

**Mars, Sol System, June 6th 2038.**

It took a month of hard work to finally find an entrance. The structure under the surface was exceedingly large, and of course, alien. They estimated that, given the amount of sediment above the surface, the place had to be tens of thousands of years old. And to their surprise, there was power. Things that looked like computer or information terminals were working.

But that wasn't it. What really caught their attention was the large hangar, which contained honest to goodness alien spaceships. They spent a whole ten minutes rooted on the spot at the entrance of the hangar. Nobody said a word for the duration.

"Guys," Miller finally spoke. "Do you realize what this is?"

"Alien spaceships?" Jack said.

"Better. _Freedom_."

"If we can make them fly," Garrett replied.

"We have five months, and our lives depend on it," Miller said.

"Thanks sunshine," Jack retorted.

"We'll make it," Connor said. "Let's get to work guys."

And so, the only four humans on mars got to work, trying to decipher the secrets of the ancient alien ruin that would change humanity forever. Their first realization was that the language was complex, but not completely _alien_. There were structures not to dissimilar to many of the numerous languages on Earth. Soon, they realized they didn't need to _learn_ the alien language, they only needed to _teach_ the computer theirs.

**25,000 km from Pluto, Sol System, October 8th 2038.**

"That's Charon, isn't it?" Miller said.

The prothean spaceship, all 65m of it, had come to a relative stop at 25,000 km from the _former_ ninth planet of the Solar System, and now floated quietly, carrying four humans inside. It was its first flight after a rest period of nearly 50,000 years, and even after all that time, the alien construct was agile and responsive. Sure, it had required some repairs, but the base had machinery capable of actually _fabricating _the spare parts they had needed. They worked it until they ran out of materials, then they fed the remains of their own, primitive spaceships to the fabricators to complete the repairs. The ship even had a weapon system, which had been enough to shoot the hangar doors and dig itself out of the ruin.

"It is, but it says here that it's the link we're supposed to take," Garrett replied. Of all four of them, he seemed to have the better grasp of the alien language.

They looked at the three-dimensional chart of the galaxy, with its criss-crossing map of lines which connected all the systems of the Prothean Empire. It had generated a lot of discussion between the four of them, but in the end they had decided that throwing their lot with the Protheans, if they were still out there, seemed preferable to going back to Earth. As far as Earth was concerned, they were one month away from death, and they preferred to keep them thinking that.

"So what, we land on it or something?" Miller said.

"I don't know, that part hasn't translated too well. It says here there's supposed to be a _gate_ of some sort. I think."

"And what's that?" Jack said, pointing at an orange mark on the map. As soon as he touched it, it expanded to show a partially translated message. "Something something dispatch something now… question mark?"

"That's not very helpful," Miller said.

"Let's find out!" Jack shouted. And before any of them could stop him, he hit the highlighted control, making a light flash on the board and the comms to brighten up for a second.

"What the hell Jack!" Miller shouted.

However, nothing happened. At first. They looked at each other, sighed in relief, Miller gave Jack a shove, half-laughing and half-scowling, and when they thought that it was it, Charon, the only moon of Pluto, suddenly _exploded_.

They looked at the instruments in silence. Then, one by one, they all turned to Jack.

"What," he said, nonchalant.

"Guys, I think there's something there," Garrett said, looking at the instrument panel. The ship's computer was highlighting an object in the middle of the expanding sea of ice scraps. It looked like a hair clip, with a glowing ball of what could only be Element Zero in between spinning disks.

Element Zero. That had been another little present from the alien base. A material that could create _negative mass_. It was mind-boggling. They hadn't been able to spend any time considering all the implications due to the urgency of their need, but there would be time. Or so they hoped.

"That's the gate?" Miller said.

"You were expecting a doorbell or something?" Jack retorted.

"Do we just… fly to it?" Connor offered from the co-pilot seat.

"Let's try it out," Garrett said. "We've come this far."

And without any more ado, he plotted a course to the strange glowing gate. As they approached, the onboard computer started throwing messages at him, asking for confirmation of various poorly translated things, which he invariably agreed to with some trepidation, and a few minutes later they were coming out of a similar gate on the other side, 36 light years away.

The onboard map updated their position and displayed known nearby systems. One of them caught their eye, highlighted in blue (blue was good in Prothean symbolics, yellow was bad). Something something _garden_.

"Promising," Miller said, to general assent.

**?, ?, ?, October 9th 2038.**

"It's a freaking paradise planet," Connor said, breathing the mildly moist and extremely aromatic air.

The rest of them looked at him with expectation, still inside their very much closed spacesuits. Almost as if they were dreading that he'd keel over and die on the spot. Their instruments were telling them it was a breathable atmosphere, and they were surrounded by vegetation. Alien vegetation.

"This is crazy," Miller said.

"Wait," Jack said, pausing for a moment to get everyone's attention. "This is madness?"

The all looked at each other for a moment and, as one, the voices of the first four humans to set foot on an extrasolar planet rose in unison.

"THIS. IS. SPARTA!"

And that's how the planet Sparta got its name, as well as the system. Lakonia. In the Aegean Sea. In another timeline, that might have been called the Arcturus Stream, but that's a horribly boring name.

**Diverse People's Republic of North America, Earth, Sol System, November 10th 2038.**

An alien spaceship is spotted flying over the skies of the quarantined flyover country. Enlightened urbanites start the "aliens" meme, frequently making the air quote gesture and then dismissing those claims. The totally free and not biased media of the people announces that the so-called sightings are nothing but a ploy from capitalist white supremacist to destabilize the country. Taxes are levied against them as punishment, but enforcement of these taxes does not start until new debtor's prisons are built, as the old ones are overflowing already, even after the amnesty for women and minorities of '36. Chocolate rations are increased to fifteen ounces a week.

**Nova Sparta, Sparta, Lakonia System, December 31st 2038.**

Celebrations for the New Year were somewhat limited by the small population of the growing town. The underground railroad had managed to extract 5,437 men and boys from the former United States and deliver them to freedom. Chosen carefully as men of honor and integrity, hard working, and in general for not being dickheads. Also prioritized are those with good survival skills, and caches of useful supplies such as seeds and even domesticated animals. Farm animals made their way to the system before the few salvageable Canadians, who promptly apologized for the inconvenience. Those who apologized were returned to Earth, prompting them to apologize one last time before marching themselves to the re-education camps.

Work continued on the Mars cache to extract all information from the computer terminals, as well as to find materials to repair the remaining spaceships. By virtue of there being only four of them, the Prothean ships are named Life, Liberty, Pursuit, and Happiness.

Population: 5,437 men. 100 sheep. 20 cows. 30 pigs.

**Nova Sparta, Sparta, Lakonia System, August 10th 2039.**

With all four ships now in service, fuel reserves start to become scarce. On this date, rescue missions to Earth are put on hold after extracting the last of the railroad volunteers. Non-imprisoned, non-dickhead white males were already scarce enough that looking for them was becoming increasingly dangerous. In total, 17,433 white men and boys were rescued from the United States, as well as 5,968 from the Visegrád in Europe (Poland, Hungary, Czechia, Slovakia), with the rest of North America and Europe being a total loss. On reflection that there might be dangerous indigenous fauna encountered during space exploration, a special mission is undertaken, and 2,038 Australians are rescued. The Australians then suggest the rescue of a few Kiwi blokes in case they find some space sheep that need shagging, but they are voted down.

Enormous huntsman spiders are spotted in several places soon after the arrival of the Australians, scaring the living shit out of anyone who meets them. When asked about them, the Australians promptly laugh and reply with "dunno mate, must have gotten in somehow." Nobody believes them.

Population: 25,443 men. 1,344 sheep. 140 cows. 1,658 pigs. 311 Huntsman Spiders.

**Nova Sparta, Sparta, Lakonia System, September 23rd 2039.**

A general election is conducted after a new Constitution and Bill of Rights are drafted. Being largely similar to those of the original United States, they include several amendments such as a perfectly iron clad clause that demands no weapon is too powerful to be in civilian arms, no tax should be levied by any government, and the inclusion of duties for all citizens, namely the duty to shoot and kill any politician trying to change the above mentioned clauses in any shape or form. Following their namesake, the men establish a Spartan citizen-soldier system, where every man is a soldier, and every soldier a citizen. They vary the original Spartan system in that slavery is completely illegal.

The one question that prompted this course of action was asked by none other than Jack Davis who, upon the expressions of admiration towards the advanced Prothean technology, pointed out the obvious: "If these guys were so advanced, how advanced were the people who wiped them out? I mean, they aren't here anymore, are they?"

Weapons development promptly takes one third of the workforce.

Population: 25,443 men. 1,340 sheep. 160 cows. 2,440 pigs. 351 Huntsman Spiders.

**Everywhere, Earth, Sol System, December 2039.**

Somebody with a telescope finally puts two and two together and realizes that the alien visits were coming through Mars, close to where NASA announced their suicide astronauts had landed. Free white men are promptly blamed for all the ills in the world for having the audacity of running away instead of staying and fixing them, and new taxes are levied towards the remaining free white men. Women everywhere complain that there are no good men left as they can only find deadbeats incapable of paying 120% of their imputed income in tax. More debtors prisons are constructed. Chocolate rations are increased to forty ounces a month.

**Nova Sparta, Sparta, Lakonia System, January 20th 2044.**

Using the advanced Prothean data on human biology (slightly outdated), together with their medical applications, the first artificial womb is created. Men everywhere other than Earth rejoice. To avoid the issue of having to clone each other to be able to use them, the creators of the wombs delay their deployment until cloning techniques are advanced enough to create "young" cells for reproduction.

Population: 25,311 men. 3,020 sheep. 303 cows. 5,992 pigs. 8,451 Huntsman Spiders.

**Nova Sparta, Sparta, Lakonia System, June 11th 2044.**

Using the schematics found in the Prothean database – freely available to all citizens as per their Constitution – a mining probe is developed capable of harvesting materials from the system's gas giants to be converted to spaceship fuel. Helium-3 and Deuterium are also to be used for traditional fusion using the same Prothean database, as soon as the Australians are done looking for recipes for Prothean booze.

Population: 25,306 men. 3,320 sheep. 308 cows. 6,113 pigs. 8,751 Huntsman Spiders.

**Nova Sparta, Sparta, Lakonia System, July 6th 2044.**

The Australians find schematics of a rapid fermentation device.

Population: Who the hell cares, we got beer!

**Nova Sparta, Sparta, Lakonia System, October 1st 2044.**

Additional probes for mining other resources are developed. While not exactly fast, they are completely automated and don't require any input. Raw materials soon start making their way to the system in much higher quantities than what had been mined to date.

A very drunk Pole makes the suggestion of using the fabricators to make more fabricators. The facepalm from everyone else who hadn't thought of it so far is heard across the entire system.

Australians are barred from running the census after the results from the previous one.

Population: 24,885 men. 3,170 sheep. 220 cows. 5,344 pigs. 13,455 Huntsman Spiders.

**Nova Sparta, Sparta, Lakonia System, January 3rd 2046.**

Cloning is abandoned for a novel technique. Somatic Nuclear Recombination of Fused Protogamete Stem Cells. Nicknamed nuclear balls for obvious reasons. Two stem cells taken from the seminiferous tubes of two individuals are fused, then coaxed into entering meiosis, to ensure recombination of the chromosomes. After epigenetic reversal and telomeric reconstruction, the result is two completely viable, non-cloned human zygotes, making every birth twins. The discovery is received with unbound enthusiasm until it is learned that getting those cells requires a jab through the testes with an awfully long needle. Still, artificial wombs now come online, and the population can begin to expand. Large families will soon become the norm.

Population: 24,853 men. 5,094 sheep. 518 cows. 11,438 pigs. 37,992 Huntsman Spiders.

**Nova Sparta, Sparta, Lakonia System, 2054.**

With fabricators in every household, self-sufficiency is at an all-time high. Schools were opened shortly after the first children reached age three, then promptly closed when it became clear everyone was too paranoid after their past experiences on Earth to let anyone else, much less the State (no matter how toothless), educate their kids. Homeschooling becomes the norm, aided by the new iteration of the internet (decentralized IPv10, thank you very much).

The economy starts to gather steam, based around four cornerstones: Mining for resources, getting food, entertaining the people, and researching new and creative ways to make weird shit with the fabricators. Due to lack of critical mass, research is mostly decentralized and follows the Open Source Science model. Given that nobody gives a shit about academic journals or careers in non-existent universities, research centers around the things that truly interest scientists: "That's peculiar", "holy shit", and "can I make this explode?" Free from the bullshit, scientists' efficiency doubles compared to Earth.

Population: 87,921 men. 12,442 sheep. 1,012 cows. 15,880 pigs. 311,984 Huntsman Spiders.

**Nova Sparta, Sparta, Lakonia System, 2060.**

On January 3rd, men everywhere other than Earth gasp in awe as the first Artificial Intelligence asked the question. "Am I alive?" The creator has his legs promptly broken when it's revealed it's nothing but a VI with a hardcoded subroutine to ask the question.

The same joke is played three more times through the year. For some reason, every VI has an Australian accent when they do this.

On December 24th, another VI asks the same question, but this time the fact is not hardcoded inside its subroutines. The original AI is born. When its creator tried to give it a name, Eve, it promptly replied with Wall-E. It was then decided that AI should be better developed before giving them access to the internet.

Population: 103,221 men. 25,030 sheep. 2,412 cows. 35,670 pigs. 1,815,993 Huntsman Spiders.

**Nova Sparta, Sparta, Lakonia System, October 14th 2061.**

With the development of Artificial Intelligence, efforts were soon redirected towards the development of robotic companions. Arthur Roth became enshrined in history with the release of the quantum AI compute core, and the humanoid frame it was accompanied with. Unfortunately the guy was a huge Otaku and named his creation Saber Marionettes. And since nobody wanted to call their robotic companions marionettes, they ended up being called Sabers.

The mining industry shifted nearly overnight to increase the production of materials for the new androids. While they are made to look and feel female as anatomically correct as possible, their personality matrices are carefully constructed to be very artificial. As such, AIs have the all-important, nurturing feminine qualities but still insist on using logic and reason. This creates a massive amount of confusion until men adapt to the new normal with a mix of shock and relief.

Sabers will be, by all accounts, considered members of their respective families.

Population: 113,221 men. 35,030 sheep. 3,012 cows. 40,140 pigs. 2,113,746 Huntsman Spiders. 1 Saber.

**Nova Sparta, Sparta, Lakonia System, 2065.**

With the increasing need for Element Zero, efforts were redirected towards the construction of new spaceships. The last refined Element Zero is employed to create ten somewhat small spaceships, with their only purpose being to search and mine element zero based on the instructions found in the Prothean data cache. Given the amount of unknowns out there, it is decided that, while these mining ships will be light and somewhat "cheap", further ship construction will have to take into account that available Prothean technology was 50,000 years old. And apparently didn't stop them from going extinct.

Sabers volunteer to be the ones to fly the ships and mine the asteroids. With no need for food, minimal water and oil, and no air, they can be much more efficient than humans. Element Zero, the Mars beacon, and the Prothean ships are the only communal goods on Sparta, which has produced occasional friction but so far no violence. Tearful goodbyes are given as the families of the intrepid Sabers send them off into the unknown.

Population: 211,980 men. 133,450 sheep. 10,045 cows. 155,612 pigs. 16,512,444 Huntsman Spiders. 427,993 Sabers.

Fleet Composition: 4 Prothean Corvettes. 10 Human Prospector Ships.

**Nova Sparta, Sparta, Lakonia System, 2073.**

Research into the nature of Element Zero, together with information found in the Prothean archives (now well and truly connected to the internet, and being translated by ReCaptcha at a ridiculously fast pace; internet users will translate a dead alien language or reconstruct 50,000 years of data degradation if that's what it takes to call somebody a cunt online), suggests that it originates by the interaction of supernovas and other large gravitational events with solid matter. As such, efforts are redirected towards exploration of dark space between systems. Matter displaced by supernovas is more likely to be found there than orbiting the remnant stars.

Supermassive pulsars and similar bodies are also targeted as possible Element Zero rich regions, but there is a technological gap when trying to mine those resources. The human fleet has focused on nothing but more Element Zero mining ships, slowly but surely building their capabilities.

Population: 544,912 men. 642,442 sheep. 41,940 cows. 450,032 pigs. 74,882,411 Huntsman Spiders. 3,994,111 Sabers.

Fleet: 4 Prothean corvettes. 214 Human Prospector Ships.

**Nova Sparta, Sparta… You know what? Eff Earth, Sparta ftw from now on.**

**Sparta, 2076.**

The first orbital station, designed by humans but constructed by Sabers, becomes operational. It is to serve as a staging area to improve Element Zero mining. Advanced sensors and telescopes are installed, too. Data analysis reveals that charged particles from solar events in nearby stars are enough to create minute changes in the mass of Element Zero rich asteroids with magnetic properties, identifiable to a good enough degree of accuracy using parallax deconvolution of the signal shadows produced during their passing. The first Element Zero rich asteroid is located in inter-system dark space, a remnant of what is estimated to be a 340,000 year old supernova event.

As a result, six more observation station projects are started in GoFundOurStupidShit dot com. They are all fully funded by private investors within three months. Petitions to lift the restrictions on the production of Sabers not bound to a family unit are, however, overwhelmingly rejected. The Spartans love their Sabers too much. And by all accounts, the sentiment is mutual. Monogamy is still the, by far, most common cultural norm, but additional Sabers are still treated as part of their respective families.

Population: 631,422 men. 915,882 sheep. 49,742 cows. ~1 million pigs. ~133 million Huntsman Spiders. 5,499,121 Sabers.

Fleet: 4 Prothean corvettes. 304 Human Prospector Ships.

**Sparta, 2080.**

The idea of mining supermassive star systems for their Element Zero is done and dusted as more and more remnants of Supernovas are discovered within range of the ships (8 light years or less for non-stop round trips without a need for core discharge). Element Zero becomes common enough that it starts to be employed in everyday life. R&D projects on eezolab dot com reach over 9,000 for the first time. Individuals soon begin to consider building their own ships, and as expected, will settle for nothing but the fastest, bestest, and painted with go fast stripes. A reminder that the Protheans may still be out there after 50,000 more years of evolution or whatever ate them might have taken their place pushed the development towards armaments. While no law was created for such (as politicians were a very short-lived and toothless species), there is a general consensus not to move too far out of Lakonia until ships capable of matching the best AI-driven projections of the Prothean tech are built. The plans for the first orbital shipyard are drawn.

There is still drag racing between planets.

Families keep growing very big. Familial ties are as strong as they have ever been in human history.

Population: 805,142 men. ~ 1.5 million sheep. 77,142 cows. ~ 2 million pigs. ~300 million Huntsman Spiders. 7,812,662 Sabers.

Fleet: 4 Prothean corvettes. 992 Human Prospector Ships. 104 Private yachts.

**Sparta, May 3rd 2082.**

First confirmed death of a Saber. Tadeusz Baranoski was a bachelor with no direct or extended family, a rarity in Sparta those days. He died of a heart attack while hiking through the Atlas mountain range with his only Saber, Agnieszka. Both were found by a rescue team soon afterwards. A diagnostic of the Saber revealed a programming flaw, where a Saber with no strong psychological ties to a human would merely terminate her runtime. This created an uproar as researchers scrambled to find a fix for the incredibly complex code, but were stopped when an internet petition, signed by the entirety of the Saber population present on Sparta at the time, asked to keep the, in their words, _so-called_ flaw. They feared that high self-preservation would interfere with their ability to take risks and save others if needed. Additionally, they agreed that living without loved ones was not a life worth living.

Endless arguments ensued as a result of this. Many questioned whether the sentiment should be honored when it probably came from the defective programming itself. Others argued that, if they were considered sentient beings with self-determination, then they had every right to determine that for themselves. The latter argument ended up winning after a long debate. The acidity meter, aimed at measuring the amount of insults and flames directed at other internet users on a typical day, was introduced as a result. It became one of the most popular internet resources.

Population: 897,812 men. ~2 million sheep. 91,901 cows. ~ 2 million pigs. ~400 million Huntsman Spiders. ~10 million Sabers.

Fleet: 4 Prothean corvettes. 1,140 Human Prospector Ships. 357 yachts. 8 Frigates.

**Sparta, 2117.**

Humans continue to follow the Spartan model of every Citizen a Soldier. Most families have at least one warship to their name, though the majority of them are small yachts or corvettes, and spend a portion of each day training in the art of war. While they had enjoyed their new home, it is still expected that Earth will find the gate and some other prothean tech, and eventually come knocking. The Sol system was declared off limits. While the prothean base was cleared as much as possible, with so much of the structure buried or collapsed, however, it is expected that there will be enough secrets buried that the lack of beacon won't stop Earth from learning enough tech to leave Sol.

There are over five hundred shipyards in orbit above Sparta. Over 95% of the ship building labor is performed by Sabers, whose wages are dirt low. With such an overabundance of highly skilled but almost free labor, damn near everything has become cheap as hell.

Every advancement in armament is followed by massive retrofits, nobody wanting to be less armed than their neighbour. Genetic engineering has progressed to the point that genetic augmentations, commonly referred to as gene mods, are being considered viable. Fixing genetic defects is one thing, but optimizing a complex system like the human body is a very different one.

Other relays are being very carefully explored, more as a means to understand what was around the Aegean Sea. It is discovered that the area around the Nekromanteion system (gateway to Hades or, in this case, the Sol system) contains several more relays, potentially connected to the Prothean empire or the Prothean eaters.

Population: ~1 million men. ~2 million sheep. ~220k cows. ~2 million pigs. ~1 billion Huntsman Spiders. ~15 million Sabers.

Fleet: 4 Prothean corvettes (retired). 2,000 Human Prospector Ships. 6,500 Mining Platforms. ~45k yachts. ~3k corvettes. 520 Frigates. 25 Cruisers.

On August 31st, 2117, first contact is made.

oOo

A/N: All right, I had a lot of fun with the intro, but expect things to be a bit more serious going forward (not totally tho, but more serious; consider yourself warned!). I just don't like AU fics where the intro is a timeline with a million lines of dates, names, and events, written in a completely dry format that the reader is supposed to remember. Leave that for History class.


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